particles of vice by being thrown into the alembic of flattery, are sublimated into the essence of virtue.-Kett.

MCCCCLXXXIII.

Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools;
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!
Busy yourselves in skill contending schools:
Debate, where leisure serves, with dull debaters:
To trembling clients be your mediators:
For me I force not arguments a straw,

Since that my case is past the help of law.

MCCCCLXXXIV.

Shakspeare.

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us; nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.-Burke.

MCCCCLXXXV.

It is obvious to discover that imperfections of one kind have a visible tendency to produce perfections of another. Mr. Pope's bodily disadvantages must incline him to a more laborious cultivation of his talent, without which he foresaw that he must have languished in obscurity. The advantages of persons are a good deal essential to popularity in the grave world as well as the gay. Mr. Pope, by an unwearied application to poetry, became not only the favourite of the learned, but also of the ladies.--Shenstone.

MCCCCLXXXVI.

It is, methinks, a low and degrading idea of that sex, which was created to refine the joys, and soften the cares of humanity, by the most agreeable participation, to consider them merely as objects of sight. This is abridging them of their natural extent of power, to put them on a level with their pictures at Kneller's.--Hughes.

MCCCCLXXXVII.

He who despises the great is condemned to honour the little: and he who is in love with trifles can have Paste for the great.-Lavater.

MCCCCLXXXVIII.

I would advise all the professors of the art of storytelling, never to tell stories, but as they seem to grow out of the subject-matter of the conversation, or as they serve to illustrate or enliven it. Stories, that are very common, are generally irksome; but may be aptly introduced, provided they be only hinted at, and mentioned by way of allusion. Those, that are altogether new, should never be ushered in, without a short and pertinent character of the chief persons concerned; because by that means, you make the company acquainted with them; and it is a certain rule, that slight and trivial accounts of those who are familiar to us, administer more mirth than the brightest points of wit in unknown characters. A little circumstance, in the complexion or dress of the man you are talking of, sets his image before the hearer, if it be chosen aptly for the story.-Steele.

MCCCCLXXXIX.

There needs no other charm, nor conjurer,
To raise infernal spirits up, but fear,

That makes men pull their horns in like a snail,
That's both a pris ner to itself in jail;

Draws more fantastic shapes, than in the grains
Of knotted wood, in some men's crazy brains,
When all the cocks they think they see, and bulls,
Are only in the insides of their skulls.

MCCCCXC.

Butler.

Disobedient children, if preserved from the gallows, are reserved for the rack, to be tortured by their own posteritie. One complaining, that never father had so undutiful a child as he had. Yes, said his sonne, with less grace than truth, my grandfather had.-Fuller.

MCCCCXCI.

The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.-Pope.

MCCCCXCII.

Colours artfully spread upon canvass may entertain the eye, but not affect the heart; and she who takes no

care to add to the natural graces of her person any excellent qualities, may be allowed still to amuse, as a picture, but not to triumph as a beauty.-Hughes.

MCCCCXCIII.

Circles are prais'd, not that abound
In largeness, but th' exactly round:
So life we praise that does excel
Not in much time, but acting well.

MCCCCXCIV.

Waller.

It may be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity should, therefore, be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius; they are fetters only to men of no genius; as that armour, which upon the strong is an ornament and defence, upon the weaken and mis-shapen becomes a load, and cripples the body which it was made to protect. — Sir J. Reynolds.

MCCCCXCV.

Great lords, by reason of their flatterers, are the first that know their own virtues, and the last that know their own vices: some of them are ashamed upwards, because their ancestors were too great. Others are ashamed downwards, because they were too little.-Selden.

MCCCXCVI.

We have fellows who sneak into company as if they bore all the sins of their family on their shoulders. And before whom is it that they thus crouch and bend? Arrogance in holiday clothing, and female foppery!-Zimmerman.

MCCCCXCVII.

Great men,

Till they have gained their ends, are giants in
Their promises, but those obtained, weak pigmies
In their performances. And it is a maxim

Allow'd among them, so they may deceive,
They may swear any thing; for the queen of love,
As they hold constantly, does never punish,
But smile at, lovers' perjuries.

MCCCCXCVIII.

Massinger.

Anciently, widows were at least to live out their "annum lutus," their year of sorrow. But as some erroneously compute the long lives of the patriarchs before the flood, not by solary, but lunary years, making a month a year; so many overhasty widows cut their years of mourning very short, and within few weeks make post speed to a second marriage.-Fuller.

MCCCCXCIX.

A clown is a Centaur, man and beast, a crab engrafted on an apple. He was neither made by art nor nature, but in spite of both, by evil custom. His perpetual conversation with beasts has rendered him one of them; and he is, among men, but a naturalized brute. He appears by his language, genius, and behaviour, to be an alien to mankind, a foreigner to humanity, and of so opposite a genius, that it is easier to make a Spaniard a Frenchman, than to reduce him to civility. He disdains every man that he does not fear; and only respects him who has done him hurt, or can do it. He is like Nebuchadnezzar after he had been a month at grass; but will never return to be a man again as he did, if he might; for he despises all manner of lives but his own, unless it be his horse's, to whom he is but valet-dechambre. He is a stoic to all passions but fear, envy, and malice; and hates to do any good, though it cost him nothing. He abhors a gentleman, because he is most unlike himself; and repines as much at his manner of living, as if he maintained him. He murmurs at him as the saints do at the wicked, as if he kept his right from him; for he makes his clownery a sect, and damns all that are not of his church. He manures the earth like a dunghill, but lets himself lie fallow, for no improvement will do good

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upon him. Cain was the first of his family; and he does his endeavour not to degenerate from the original churlishness of his ancestor. He that was fetched from the plough to be made dictator had not half his pride and insolence; nor Caligula's horse, that was made consul.-Butler.

MD.

The attempt of the poetical populace of the present day to obtain an ostracism against Pope, is as easily ac counted for as the Athenian's shell against Aristides;they are tired of hearing him always called 'THE JUST.' They are also fighting for life; for if he maintains his station, they will reach their own by falling.-Lord By

ron.

MDI.

However low and poor the taking of snuff argues a man to be in his stock of thoughts, or means to employ his brains and his fingers; yet there is a poorer creature in the world than he, and this is a borrower of snuff'; a fellow that keeps no box of his own, but is always asking others for a pinch. Such poor rogues put me always in mind of a common phrase among schoolboys when they are composing their exercise, who run to an upper scholar, and cry, "Pray give me a little sense?" Steele.

MDII.

I would have all men elevated to as great a height as they can discover a lustre to the naked eye.-Shenstone.

MDIII.

A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find;
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting weight pride adds to emptiness,
This who can gratify? for who can guess?

MDIV.

Pope.

The honest country gentleman, and the thriving tradesman, or country farmer, have all the real benefits of nature, and the blessings of plenty that the highest and richest grandees can pretend to; and (what is more)